Graham

I really enjoy the podcast; I've been acquainted with Gav for years as I've been going to Damnation since 2007 and have becone part of their volunteer crew and am the admin for their Facebook group so already have an interest in the festival, but it's still a very enjoyable listen It's Damnation this coming weekend, anyone up to Manchester for it?

The new Blood Incantation, again A stunning record mixing death metal and prog, set against a cosmic backdrop. Even if death metal isn't your thing, it's well worth checking out. https://youtu.be/hWIsZId2P-A?si=sTSVJe0UIwjx_vuE

I had a Mayones Be4, superb bass; I've considered getting a Baphomet 5 as they're very well priced for what you get

Damnation Festival in Manchester first weekend in November Then Better Lovers in January, all I've got booked at the moment

First bass - Squier Affinty Precison, your standard starter bass in 2002 2nd bass and first 5 string - Ibanez K5, 18th birthday present in 2003 First (and only) bass with custom options - Mayones Be4, bought under endorsement when I was in a metal band, something like 2008 After that, nothing else really jumps out as a milestone until (Almost) new American made Stingray 5 Special, in 2024 - about a month ago, partly for my 40th next year. The best quality instrument I've ever owned and right now I can't imagine liking anything else more

Just ordered one, thanks - I'd been thinking about a line selector recently

Yes, agreed she's got a similar vibe, having Johannes on there again helps - it's my top abum of the year so far and there's not much coming out that could dethrone it

Oceanic is in my top 5 albums of all time, I adore it - also part of the reason I play a Stingray

This probably my favourite album Cult Of Luna & Julie Christmas - Mariner https://youtu.be/25qg0SKa-N0?si=tX2lUhoS9IvVYftu

Bossk are brilliant, seen them a few times, last year at Damnation was great - they played Audio Noir in full on the Friday then filled in for another band who dropped out at the last minute on the Saturday and got Johannes from Cult Of Luna to join them for Menhir, which was epic Their new album is in my top five of the year so far I'm into a fair bit of post-metal and post-rock, the new Hippotraktor and Oh Hiroshima albums are very good too

I'd start with this https://youtu.be/4FRFcE-jsQo?si=nTGTF4yJcxulpQUi

Those genres all mean something to me as I've invested a lot of time and effort in more obscure music - I'm someone who considers if I'm listening to brutal death metal or slam death metal for instance Whilst there is certainly similarities between some of the genres you've named, there is also nuanced differences Doom, stoner and sludge for instance will have elements of their sound that crosses over - in these cases they probably all love Black Sabbath - but there will be differences between a doom band and a sludge band and stoner one will be different still dreampop and shoegaze are very close bedfellows and you wouldn't be wrong to say the same for mid-west emo and indie, however you can make a distinction between them if you want You don't need to sub-divide genres at all if you don't want to, but then some folk will have vigerous debates about for example, what makes a band post-hardcore rather than emo The purpose, as I see it of these categorisations and sub-genres is to aid communication when describing to others what a band sounds like, so I have an idea of what I'm going to hear and how to find similar sounding acts if I like it However, there's no need to make the distinctions if you don't want or need to. Apologies for what is probably a very autistic answer

Can anyone recommend a toneprint for the TC Specracomp that is more like valve compression than the stock toneprint?

I found the emails from Bassbros were going into my junk folder, I was a little anxious that I'd not received a notification they'd shipped my bass; but they had, it'd just gone into junk The Outlook/Hotmail junk algorithm seems a bit screwey at the moment and keeps putting legitimate emails into junk

I set my pedalboard back up last night, so I could use my TC Spectracomp with the Ampeg SGT-DI which I use for practice and found some really interesting results - got a lot more out the Ampeg pre-amp and didn't need the compressor; which is quite different to my experiences using other basses - Lakland DJ5 and a Sterling Ray25CA The Sepectracomp was a key part of my live tone for years into an EBS amp, but (at home, on headphones) it was too much - just swamped the Ampeg pre and made everything sound unwieldy. I found there was no need for compression, the Stingray sounded better without it. Now I don't play live much at the moment, so I've left the Spectracomp on the board to see how it translates in a live setting at some point in the future, but I found that very interesting. Also, I found the two channels of the Ampeg sounded much more distinct from each other - the SGT channel was more driven, whereas before I'd just found it bigger sounding. So now I have "pop" and "rock" settings to go with what I'm playing, which is very useful. I assume this is function of the output level of the bass, but presumably also which frequencies are enhanced/diminished compared to my previous instruments

Recieved my new Stingray 5 Special yesterday, and boy is it great I'd been selling my Lakland DJ5 to fund an ADHD assessment for my youngest, but as it took so long to sell, shortly after we got a letter telling us she would have one on the NHS, which freed up some money. That coupled with being 40 soon meant I jumped on this, I've never had an instrument of this quality before, it's just brilliant The neck is so comfortable, I found my hand dancing over it, easily playing things I'd found more challenging before. The tone is clear, articulate and punchy without being thin or clanky; I'll need to spend a bit more time with the onboard pre-amp and my practice set-up to get the best out of it, last night I was pretty much running it flat The low B is excellent, articulate and big sounding, but still well balanced with the other four strings - something I've been searching for in a five string for ages That 18v pre is a monster though, a little goes a long way and you can get into clipping very easily. It seems a bass that's very responsive to your playing, the tone shifting a fair bit depending on your hand position and how much you dig in. I wasn't running any compression last night, but I'll experiment with that too. All in all, I'm a bit smitten and very glad I've bought it Technically, I received two basses yesterday as I also paid my colleague for the de-fretted Ibanez SR505 he leant me *ages* ago, so whilst it's not new to me, it is newly mine. I'd been having a lot of fun playing the fretless, I definitely need to work on my intonation though. Looking forward to dropping the tuning down a tone to play some Death and Cynic Anyway, I know you're mostly here for pictures, so

It's very much worth catching the first of the two Bossk sets too If you like Earthtone9, as they'll be covering one of their songs, with the singer

WIsh I was going - loads of music I really like and lots of friends there, however with the kids I can't do that many days away from home There's a realy good podcast by James and Gavin the promoters of ATG/2000 Trees and Damnation festival. It's funny and very candid about the way they go about booking their festivals and the difficulties and costs involved. Very candid infact, in a a recent episode they went into the costs of running the festivals to the pound Well worth a listen if you attend any of three festivals they run Edit: I tried to embed a link, but it didn't work so search 2 Promoters 1 Pod on Spotify/Apple/the pod-catcher of your choice https://open.spotify.com/show/3Crf0fiqO6VA9rtw6Z0KvO?si=4dM-UDcLS0y0IjNs2dVZMw

I think you're onto something there 😁

Usually experienced when lifting the cab But maybe between thump and punch?

Describing sounds in ascending order of frequency: Thump Punch Growl Clank

I suspect it may be this one, if not it's very similar

Well I've ordered it, really looking forward to it arriving It's a Stingray 5 special in an attractive green finish https://bassbros.co.uk/product/2023-ernie-ball-music-man-stingray-special-5-h/